memoir

Hard Time Marrying Part 26

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Image pulled from internet

Though Anya had initially invited Joe into her bed out of gratitude, over the next months  she learned to love him passionately, looking forward to their time together in the rope bed.  Neither of them had a lot to say, but the little family thrived.  Sally had gone from toddling to running and was speaking in short sentences.  Little Joe now called them “Ma”  and “Pa,” likely forgetting the poor woman who’d born him.  Anya was the only one Sally had ever called “Ma.”

Joe and Anya traded visits with Emma and Rufus a couple of times over the summer with Emma promising to attend her baby’s birth.  Anya came to depend on her like a mother, taking comfort in her company, grateful she didn’t have to feel awkward about the timing of the upcoming birth.  Emma never brought the subject up again, just reminded Anya to have Joe fetch her when he time came.

One Saturday evening Melvin came riding over to let them know he’d be marrying Jenny in a couple of weeks.  Emma sent word they should come to the wedding.  Joe told Melvin they’d try if Anya was up to it, but as soon as he was out of earshot, reminded Anya.  “We got to lay low.  It was night and the woman was bundled up against the cold, but that preacher might see  you ain’t the woman I married.  There ought’n to be no questions about you long as that preacher don’t git to nosin’ around.  Nobody else was there for the marryin’. We’ll just say you ain’t well an’ keep to the house.”  Joe didn’t think much of preachers and was rankled that this one stood between him and Anya.

It pained Anya to shun her friend’s joy, but knew they dared not risk discovery.  She’d been lulled into a sense of general well-being with her life with Joe and pregnancy hormones.  She had begun to look forward to the little one, hoping it would be a girl who looked like her own baby sister.  Joe lay spooned against her at night, often stroking her belly in his sleep as he nuzzled her shoulder.  Anya wouldn’t have changed anything about her life.

Joe looked around the small cabin the next morning.  “We’re gonna be spllin’ out of this cabin son.  Next spring, I’m gonna put in a few acres of grain for a cash crop so we can add on a room an’ maybe get you a cook-stove.  A woman that cooks like you  ought’a have her a stove.  Joe scooped Sally up and tickled her as she darted by in pursuit of her kitten.”  Life was good.

 

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Hard Time Marrying Part 25

 

big-wildflowerThey got home well before dark.  While Joe and Little Joe milked and tended the stock, Anya put Sally in her sling and walked across the meadow down to the creek.  The cow and calf grazed near the willows, the calf didn’t have to be kept up to protect the milk, though all it enjoyed was its mother’s company since she’d gone dry.  Joe hadn’t bothered to scythe down the weeds since he didn’t have to worry about the coming calf.  The stand of Queen Anne’s lace waved its graceful heads, its regal beauty given no hint of its hidden use.  Anya had often gathered wildflowers on her walk, bringing back an apron full of Black-Eyed Susan’s, bright Indian Blanket, and Texas Bluebonnets, loving the way their colors brightened the cabin.  She’d never been especially fond of white, but today, filled her apron with the lacy white flowers and nothing else.

Emma had sent home enough chicken and dumplings for another meal.  With biscuits from breakfast and Emma’s conserve, it made a festive supper.  Little Joe licked his plate and Sally kept squealing and reaching for the conserve, long after she plastered herself with hers.  They laughed as they cleaned the little ones up.  The children were reluctant to settle in bed after their exciting day and the hilarity at supper.  Joe lay on the cot with his little namesake was still while Anya rocked Sally.

He came back to the table and took Anya’s hand.  Looking pointedly at the pot of white flowers, he said, “You want to be careful with those.  You know they made the cow lose her calf.  I don’t want nothin’ happenin’ to you.  A baby is just a baby.”

Anya started crying.  “Joe, I don’t even know if I want this baby.  I was hopin’ things could go on the way they were.  You have already taken in your dead wife’s little ones and now this.  This baby was forced on me.  I don’t know if I can do right by it, let alone love it.  I think it might be better if you let me do what I need to do and after, if you want, we can figure somethin’ out.  We can make a clean start or I can leave once I am back on my feet if you want. We ain’t married and you done took care of me a long time.  You don’t owe me nothin’.  You could always look for a woman to come stay and help out till she’s bigger.  The West is full of women who need somebody to do for an’ a place to stay.”

Joe was a man of few words.  “Anya, I know what it is to be alone.  I never knew my pa, these younguns don’t know their pa.  You done without a ma. The world don’t have to be such a cold place. You’re are a good woman an’ I seen how you love these little fellers.  I want you, and that little feller you’re a’carrying if that’s the way you see it.”  He picked up his hat to go to the barn.

Anya looked from Sally to Joe as a tear dropped on Sally’s blonde head.  She reached out, putting a hand on Joe’s shoulder.  “Stay, Joe.  It’s time Sally started sleepin’ in with Little Joe.”

Tenderly, Joe tucked Sally in on the far side of the cot with Little Joe, then put out the light.

Spare Christmas for Blanche

img_1617Every year around Christmas, I think of a girl I went to school with briefly. Blanche was the new kid. She seemed lost. I guessed it was because she’d changed schools in the middle of the school year but it turned out to be a lot more than that. I felt so badly for her as her sad story unfolded.

Until her thirteenth year, Blanche had been the pampered only child of an older couple. Out of the blue, child services showed up to inform Blanche and her parents that her “biological mother” was now tuberculosis-free, ready to reclaim her children from foster care. All this information blindsided Blanche. Within days, she was returned to her birth family, finding herself the second child and only girl in a family of seven children.

Blanche was devastated moving from a comfortable middle-class family into an impoverished family low on the social scale. They lived in an unpainted farmhouse miles from town with no bathroom. She felt like a workhorse with major responsibilities for the first time in her life. Her “old’ parents sent her a box of gifts at Christmas, but her “new” parents took them back to the store, exchanging them to get a gift apiece for each child instead. She got a steam iron for Christmas since she was responsible for the family’s ironing.

My friendship with Blanche was short. One day the children weren’t in school. We heard they’d gone back into foster care. I always hoped Blanche got to return to her “old” parents she yearned to rejoin.

Ho, Ho, Ho

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Do You Get This?

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Audio

Hard Time Marrying Part 24

frontier-woman-evelyn-cameron                                            Image of frontier woman in her kitchen pulled from internet.

 

“Are you havin’ more trouble?”

“I’m afraid it might come early.”

“Well, ain’t nothin’ to be done about that.  Just don’t overdo yourself and maybe it will hold.”  Emma reassured her.

“That’s not what I mean.  I think I was carrying this baby when I come here.”  Anya studied her lap.

“Well, Joe knowed you was a widow.  You don’t look too far along.  You been here long enough it might be Joe’s.”

“It ain’t.  Joe ain’t never touched me.  That’s why I ain’t told him about the baby.  It cain’t be his.  I wish I would just lose it!  I don’t want to Joe to put me out over this baby.  Our life is just starting to be good.”  Anya cried softly.

“Anya.  I know you a good woman the way you look after Joe and them young’uns.  Joe is a good man.  You are gonna have to talk to him about this.  Times is real hard out here.  They ain’t a town fer miles.  Good folks don’t just happen by.  You an’ Joe might have a chance.  I ‘spect Joe’s already suspicions ‘bout that baby.  I knowed you was in the family way the minute I seen you.  Rufus saw it, too.  The Lord has done joined you together and you don’t need to be parted, not without trying.  You’re a’thinkin’ Joe ain’t gonna want you with this baby comin’. You’re a figurin’ you gonna lose him anyway.  Joe’s a good man.  Even if it turns out he don’t want you with this baby, you need to talk to him.  He’s showed you kindness all this time.  He ain’t gonna grind you under his foot like a snake even if he don’t want you.  The two of you can figure out somethin’. Joe ain’t never had nobody to care about him before and that means a lot.” 

Even if Emma was wrong, her kindness eased Anya’s fears.

“I just don’t want to put no more on Joe.” She explained.

“Then don’t leave his feelings out of this.  Let’s get them dumplings started.  The menfolk is gonna be hungry.”  Emma was a good woman.

Deer Season Only Comes Once a Year

angrysanta_1000Daddy took his hunting very seriously.  This was a man’s sport, an entitlement.  Real men hunted and fished.  A man’s outdoor gear was a reflection of his virility..  Daddy would have sooner worn lace panties than not follow the unwritten rules. Hunting gear was a necessity, not an extravagance like a dependable car, bills paid on time, and clothes for the family.  Daddy always had money held out of his paycheck weekly for the Christmas Club, but Mother never could remember that deer season came around the same time as the Christmas Club checks were issued.  By early December, both had long unwritten lists in their heads.  A day or so before the check was to be issued, Daddy would be in an unaccustomed jovial mood, sitting at the table with one of his buddies drinking coffee, and casually mention his plan to purchase a Manchester #1108 Rifle with a scope.  Nearby at the stove, steam rose from Mother’s ears.  The Manchester #1108 Rifle cost about the same as her Christmas list.

The Annual Christmas Fight was on.  Daddy’s manhood was at stake.  He couldn’t emasculate himself by backing down on his purchase after bragging in front of his hunting buddies.  Mother completely misunderstood a man’s needs and considered him selfish, lowering his opinion of her and hurting his feelings.  “When I was a kid I only got an orange for Christmas, and was proud of that.  Besides, you should be able to get everything on your list for about twelve dollars.  Twelve seemed to be the only number Daddy knew when it came to doling money out to Mother.  Every week, she got twelve dollars for groceries, a magnanimous sum for the 1950s.  We ate a lot of beans and biscuits. You just needed to go through the store, pick out what she wanted, take it up to the register, and tell the manager what you are willing to pay.  That’s what I’d do if I handled the shopping!  Ain’t no need in letting people run over you.  Do I have to manage the house and make the living?  And besides, where were the clothes and toys I bought the kids and those three nice dresses I just bought you?  You just didn’t take of stuff right or you’d still have them? Blah, blah, blah.”

Mother snidely pointed out, “That was over ten years ago.    Besides, how would you know how much things cost now?  You haven’t put a toe in a store, paid a bill, been to a bank, or handled any business since we got married. Don’t you think anybody besides YOU might want a nice Christmas!”  Suggesting he might be selfish was the final insult! It was on!

Eventually, they both developed battle fatigue and went about their business.  Daddy went off in a huff and buy his rifle, but toned his pride down a bit, and made do with a cheaper model.  Deeply offended at Mother’s demands,   he handed over thirty or thirty-five dollars left from the Christmas Check.  Once she recovered from her rage at his everlasting selfishness, she’d shuffle bills, frantically glue in trading stamps, put us kids to selling coke bottles, feed us meals of beans, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, and canned vegetables, less with meat and fruit.  She worked late every night concocting some homemade gifts and checked Goodwill out. Grandma always sent a huge box of Christmas gifts, her sister Annie always sent money.  Somehow, Mother always managed to pull together a wonderful Christmas.

On Christmas morning we woke to find gifts piled all around the Christmas tree.  Mother was relieved to have manufactured a miracle once again.  Daddy enjoyed seeing his children enjoying a bounteous Christmas and was reassured  to Mother could do well with a little money when she half tried.  Maybe next year he could save back enough to get that……….

Smorgasbord Christmas Reading – Anti-Social Media by Kate-Beth Heywood

Sally recommends, so you know it’s good.

Hard Time Marrying Part 23

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Anya just drank up Emma’s house as Emma showed her through.  A bright oilcloth covered the kitchen table.  Gingham curtains fluttered in the window.  A cast-iron cook stove filled one corner of the kitchen and a few dish-lined shelves covered the walls over the cook table.  A dishpan hung on one side of the stove and a few pots on the other.  A can of flour and a bread board set on the cook table.   Doors opened off either side of the kitchen and rough stairs climbed to the attic opposite the stove.  An apron hung on a nail, next to an embroidered drying towel.  A water bucket and dipper stood on a shelf next to the back door.  A cracked mirror in a frame hung there also, along with a comb on a string, concession to vanity.

“We got bedrooms opening off both sides of the kitchen.  When Melvin got old enough, he slept in the attic.  He moved downstairs after Marthy married.  He’s courtin’ Jenny Parker, now, so I reckon they could be a weddin’ before too long.  I always hoped we’d have to build more rooms fer a passel of younguns, but I guess the Good Lord thought two was a’plenty.  We ain’t always had it so nice.  Twenty-four years ago we started digging out a sod house when I was first a’carrying Martha.  We ain’t been married long an’ didn’t have nothin’ but a start of seed, Rufus’s old gun, the clothes we stood up in, a few quilts, some old pots and crockery my ma spared me, an ax, shovel, plow and a mule and wagon Joe’s pa set him up with. Our folks was mighty good to help us like that.  They ain’t had much neither.  We slept in the wagon fer a few weeks while we planted and Joe dug sod.  By July, it had dried out enough so we could frame up with poles Joe cut down by the creek.  By the time Rufus had a good-sized hole dug, the sod had dried enough to stack.  We set corner poles and got to stacking them soddy bricks.  After we got high as I could reach on the north side, Rufus stacked the rest of the way up and I started the next wall.  We took the wagon apart to frame up the door and build a tight door.  Joe sodded up a lean-to for the mule off the back wall of our soddy. I sure hated to see that old wagon go, but there weren’t no timber.  We sodded the roof, and it was good enough to get us through a winter or two. 

After our second crop come in, Joe come up with enough lumber to build a two-room cabin.  I was sure proud.  That soddy kept us out of the cold, but when it rained mud was always fallin’ in on us….and the bugs!  We couldn’t keep them bugs out!  A cabin is sure a comfort! He built the other bedroom I was carrying the still-born baby, but we didn’t need more room till Melvin come along.

That old soddy comes in handy as a root cellar now.  Long as we keep plenty of dry straw on the floor and don’t let the taters, sweet taters, turnips, and apples from touchin’ they’ll keep till spring.  I hang my onions and herbs on the rafters so they keep good.  I make leather britches out of my green beans so we can have a taste of fresh all winter.  A few years ago, Rufus brung me in some a’them canning jars an’ I been able to put up conserves when the fruit comes in.  I was so proud, I ‘bout cried when I seen ‘em.  Here, I want you to have this wild plum conserve I put up.  It will go so good with your fine biscuits.”  Emma was justly proud of her home and housekeeping.

Tears came to Anya’s eyes.  “Oh Emma, this is the finest thing I’ve ever been given.  I’ll make sure to git your jar safe back to you.”

“Oh no you won’t.  It’s a weddin’ present.  Every woman should have something fine from a friend.  I am proud to be your first one here.”  Emma hugged Anya to her with the warmth of a mother.  “I’m sure praying you’ll carry this little one and be spared the sorrow I felt.”

“Emma, I am so worried about this baby.” Anya whispered.